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Festival pedigree

This year’s MassKara festival was an unfortunate victim of the weather, which had been so wet and gloomy that even if classes were suspended for one whole week, just as the festivities were supposed to be peaking, most young people still opted to stay home.

The miserable weather affected the mood and plans of the revelers greatly, which in turn resulted in poor sales for the kiosks and vendors at the festival areas, who were expecting the usual droves of people that usually accompany one of the more popular and longer-running festivals in the country.

Aside from the affected kiosks and vendors, the rains also affected most of the pre-highlight festival activities, as those were mostly held outdoors. Although if you come to think of it, compared to inasal and beer that you can get anywhere on this island, the draw of a free outdoor concert or show is usually enough to pull in a sizable crowd. The difference was that if the weather had been better, the audience would have stuck around after to enjoy themselves some more, but when you are wet and uncomfortable, there just aren’t enough reasons to stay and partake of the festivities.

Unless the Democrats of the USA can lend us their fabled weather controlling machines, the whims of mother nature that have been intensified by climate change and global warming are something that we will have to deal with as far as festivals are concerned.

Fortunately for this year’s MassKara festival, all wasn’t lost as the weather did clear up during the highlight weekend, allowing the parties to continue and the people to come out, and even the street dancing and arena competition was held in relatively good weather.

The most affected by the days of poor weather were those who rented kiosks for the entirety of the festival. Hopefully, the reprieve of the extension that was granted for the festival kiosk tenants can help them at the very least break even. Those who weren’t able to go out and enjoy that part of the festival might want to help them out by indulging in a few more days of merrymaking.

Maybe it’s because more people were stuck at home when they should be merrymaking in October, but the lackluster attendance due to the poor weather has also shone the spotlight on the current state of the MassKara festival, which turned 45 years old this year.

Some people are saying that it doesn’t feel the same anymore, and it has turned into a party / music festival featuring entertainers from out of town who probably don’t even know what a MassKara is. The music and vibes don’t feel particularly MassKara-ish anymore and there are even people who are starting to miss that earworm song about the “pakitong kitong” and “manok ni San Pedro” which was quite annoying back then but turns out to have been closely associated with the festival’s identity.

Even the number of barangays with street dance groups, which was the point of the MassKara festival when it started in the 1980s, have drastically gone down. The COVID pandemic, which was a convenient excuse a few years ago, is no longer valid for the absence of participating groups, so it seems like the city and its chosen organizer has not been prioritizing that essential aspect of the festival.

Forty-five years is a long time to keep a festival fresh and interesting, but sometimes, if the people responsible for it forget its roots, it can have a tendency to be too different and even lose its identity and what makes it unique. The MassKara festival was different because it was colorful and fun, despite having a tragic backstory. As it grew and evolved over the years, it has now become one big street party, which was a welcome addition back then, but it now looks like the focus on partying and big acts is threatening to overshadow the vibe, identity, and cultural value of the festival.

As it approaches its 50th year in existence, the MassKara festival will need some introspection because whilst it was unique back then, every other town and city in this island have copied the formula and come up with their own street dancing and arena competitions and giant street parties. That is the trouble with the ‘modern’ Philippine festival formula these days, which is relatively easy to pull off as long as there is funding and support from the local government. If MassKara is going to be different, it has to be unique, and for it to continue being so, it may have to start looking to the past and its raison d’etre, because that is what makes it different and has made it last 45 years, and become one of the top 3 festivals in the country.

MassKara may be well established and seem too big to fail, but if it loses its identity and history, it can still become just another generic street dance and street party that happens at least once a month in the country. If it loses that edge, there are a lot that can beat it at its own game, especially if it loses its pedigree to organizers whose priorities have forgotten why the festival came to be in the first place.*

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